Palin weighs in on Akin

Sarah Palin slammed GOP Senate hopeful Todd Akin’s decision to continue his bid for the Missouri seat and suggested that she might back a third-party challenger in an interview on Fox News on Tuesday night.

“He’s inviting himself back into this general election that’s coming up, and he’s going to get defeated. And that’s unfortunate,” the former Alaska governor said on “On the Record with Greta Van Susteren.” “That is why we have to think pragmatically about this, and we have to think, well, what’s another option? Is a third-party another option? If it is, let’s go. The status quo has got to go.”

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Palin’s remarks came hours after Akin, in defiance of GOP influentials from Mitt Romney to the National Republican Senatorial Committee, refused to drop his challenge to Sen. Claire McCaskill, the incumbent Democratic senator from Missouri. Akin, a congressman from the Show-Me State, was under intense pressure to do so after a weekend flap in which he suggested that in the instance of “legitimate rape,” biological defenses often prevent pregnancy.

“Bless his heart, I don’t want to pile on Todd Akin, because in some respects, I understand what he’s trying to say here, in standing on principle, that he doesn’t want to be perceived as a quitter, but you got to know when to hold them and know when to fold them,” Palin said, adding, “Missouri is a must-win state.”

Akin, she said, is not the one to secure the state for the Republicans.

“This is not going in his favor,” Palin said. “So you have to step aside … from your self-desire to get in there and serve and do what you believe is right, and you have to, in a sense, take one for the team, and you have to step aside, hand the mantle to someone else.”

In the interview, Palin championed Sarah Steelman, who was her choice for the ticket in Missouri’s bloody Republican primary, and added that if Akin doesn’t drop out by the end of September, “it’s going to be a third party then.”

“We’ll do whatever we can to not quash this opportunity that we have to take Missouri for the good of the country and for the good of every citizen of Missouri, to take it back, put government back on the side of the people,” Palin said, adding later, “It’s doable. It’s winnable — Missouri is. And that leads to winning the Senate.”